The 2024 Joint Research Conference on Statistics in Quality, Industry, and Technology will take place in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, June 17–20 at the University of Waterloo. This is a joint meeting of the 29th Spring Research Conference on Statistics in Industry and Technology and the 40th Quality and Productivity Research Conference.

The goal of the conference is to stimulate interdisciplinary research and innovative solutions to practical problems through interaction between statisticians, data scientists, quality professionals, engineers, students, and others from diverse fields. The theme of this year’s conference is Data Science and Statistics for Industrial Innovation. The technical program will focus on statistical methodology and creative problem-solving to address scientific, industrial, and business challenges, drawing on advances from the statistics, machine learning, and data science fields.

The conference will honor Stefan Steiner, professor and past chair (2014–2022) of the department of statistics and actuarial science at the University of Waterloo. Steiner is an expert in quality improvement, process monitoring, experimental design, and measurement system assessment in the realms of business, industry, and health care. He will give a keynote address titled “The Art and Science of Leveraging.”

For an additional fee, participants can register for a full-day, interactive short course (held on June 17) called “Introduction to Large Language Models.” Ming Li, director of data science at PetSmart and adjunct instructor at the University of Washington, is the instructor.

The conference will also include (at no additional cost) a technical tour of the Royal City Brewing Co. in Guelph, Ontario.

An important objective of the Joint Research Conference is to encourage student participation, which is done by awarding scholarships such as the Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship and student scholarships funded by the National Science Foundation and Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute.

The conference is cosponsored by the American Statistical Association Section on Quality and Productivity, American Statistical Association Section on Physical & Engineering Sciences, and Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Organization of this conference is in partnership with Virginia Tech.

Visit the conference website for up-to-date information about the program, registration, accommodations, and scholarships. Questions can be emailed to Nathaniel Stevens.